On Monday, crypto exchange Kraken announced that its letting go of 30% of its staff, which translates to about 1,100 people, as mass layoffs continue to haunt the crypto industry.
According to Kraken Co-founder and CEO Jesse Powell, the company had to grow fast and triple its workforce as hundreds of millions of new users entered the crypto space, but the slowdown in the economy has forced its hands.
“Since the start of this year, macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have weighed on financial markets. This resulted in significantly lower trading volumes and fewer client sign-ups. We responded by slowing hiring efforts and avoiding large marketing commitments.” wrote Powell in a blog post.
“Unfortunately, negative influences on the financial markets have continued and we have exhausted preferable options for bringing costs in line with demand.”
12-month rollback
With this, the San Francisco-based exchange’s total headcount is reduced from about 3,667 to 2,567 employees, taking back the team size to where it was 12 months ago.
Kraken thanked the departing employees for their contributions and offered them a “comprehensive support” package, which includes 16 weeks of base pay, a performance bonus as determined by the manager, 4 months of healthcare benefits, immigration support, and outplacement assistance.
At the onset of the bear market, when several players resorted to layoffs, Kraken had said in a June blog post that it doesn’t intend to reduce any headcount and instead plans to add 500 roles by the end of the year.
However, now the company’s strategy has changed to include “thoughtful cost management and spending.”
Founded in 2011, Kraken believes these measures will allow it to sustain itself in the long run while continuing to deliver world-class products and services in the blockchain industry.
